wrote in message
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On Sun, 11 Apr 2010 11:43:12 -0700, "nom=de=plume"
wrote:

I believe tort is responsible for a few percentage points of the overall
cost.

Cite that.
Be sure to include the legal costs of the suits that fail and the
defensive medicine, useless tests and unneeded procedures to avoid or
blunt a tort.


Read up:

http://www.factcheck.org/president_u..._costs_of.html

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Using studies that compare tort limits to no tort limits is a red
herring.
That does net really address costs overall. Simply limiting torts to a
quarter of a million does not really affect the number of torts. In
fact it may make lawyers file more of them.
You can make a very nice living on 33-40% of a quarter million.
The other thing that they don't look at in these kinds of statistics
are the unsuccessful suits. You chose to throw them out too.
The patient may not get a dime but the doctor's lawyer still sends in
his bill and we pay that.
This is why real tort reform would be "loser pays".

How did we all know you were a lawyer before you mentioned it. Most
legislators are too. Hmmm I see a pattern here.


Well, I'm sure you've got some study somewhere that supports your notion of
tort being the factor that's destroying healthcare, but I haven't seen it so
far.

I have no objection to "loser pays" legislation. I believe that's the case
already for some things, and I know there are cases where a truly frivolous
case has had the plaintiffs paying. This is true in some arbitration
agreements that I've seen.

You don't didn't know I was a lawyer before I mentioned I suppose. Do you
think I should run for office?


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Nom=de=Plume